Read Hummingbird Online

Authors: LaVyrle Spencer

Tags: #Fiction

Hummingbird (46 page)

BOOK: Hummingbird
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When it was announced at services one Sunday that pews had finally been ordered for the church, she suggested to David that they see about purchasing the old wooden benches at a fraction of what new chairs would have cost. This done, she next raided Avery Holmes's back room and came up with a dusty bolt of sturdy rep that had been lying there untouched for years simply because it was bright scarlet. She considered scarlet the perfect color to lend the shoe store the interior warmth she was striving for. She talked Avery into selling her the entire bolt at a ridiculously low price and left him feeling only too glad that he'd unloaded it at last. Afterward, she talked the ladies of the sewing circle into experimenting with upholstering, which none of them had ever tried before. They padded and covered the old church benches with the red rep, all the while thanking Miss Abigail for giving them a chance to try their hand at this new craft.

The bolt of rep seemed to have no end. When the benches were completed, there were still yards and yards left. Abbie fashioned simple, flat curtain panels with which to frame the bow window, to be tied back, giving the whole display a stagelike affect. Still she hadn't run out of the red fabric, so the remainder of the bolt she began tearing into strips whenever she found time, to be used later in braided rugs for in front of the door and before the iron stove at the rear of the store.

As August neared and the building took shape, Abbie and David worked together on the massive order that needed placing with the factory in Philadelphia for the first stocking of the shelves. The heat remained intense, the air seeming always to carry its low haze of dust motes. One such late afternoon the two of them were in the coolest spot they could find: on the grass out under the linden tree in Abbie's backyard, with ledgers, lists, and catalogues spread all about them.

"But you have to think about winter coming!" Abbie was insisting. "Be practical, David. If you were to place an order from your company only, for nothing but high-fashion shoes, you'll lose out on the far greater share of your potential business."

"I've always sold fine, up-to-date shoes," he argued. "People can buy boots in a dry goods store—so let them."

"But why lose their business?"

"Because I don't think I'll need it. I'll have all the business I need selling the more fashionable styles I've always handled."

"Maybe in the East you would, and maybe traveling in a circuit like you did in the past, because what you carried was a novelty and those who saw them thought they'd lose the chance to buy such shoes once you moved on. But out here, in one place, you'll need to suit all needs. Work boots would be your best seller of all."

"But how will work boots look in that lovely little Cape Cod window you talked me into?"

"Horrible!"

He blinked at her questioningly. "Well?"

Immediately she was planning: she was always filled with fresh ideas. "Well… we'll put them in the back of the store, in a spot more suited to them. We'll display them where the men will feel more comfortable looking at them. That's it!" she exclaimed, the idea suddenly gelling. "We'll make a spot exclusively for the men! Men are so funny that way, they like to have a spot of their own. We'll get a few captain's chairs like the ones out in front of Mitch's feedstore and we'll circle them around the stove and… and… let's see…" She pondered again, placing a finger against her teeth. "We'll make it homey and masculine both at once—a red rug in the middle of the circle of chairs, and maybe we can display the boots in a masculine way that's attractive and takes a little of the dullness away."

"I don't know," David said doubtfully.

She became impatient with him and jumped up, spilling ledgers and scattering notes and papers. "Oh, David, be sensible!"

"I am being sensible. This town already has an outlet for work boots and everyday shoes. I specialize in fashionable shoes and they are what I know how to sell. It's the ladies I want to appeal to. When they see what is in the front window, I want them to run straight home and exclaim to their husbands, 'Guess what I saw today!'"

Abbie stood very still now, hands on her hips, challenging him. "And what exactly will they describe?"

"Well, the window display, of course, filled with the kind of shoes that appeal to their vanity or maybe their husband's vanities. Heavenly shoes the likes of which they've never seen in their lives, straight from the East."

Whether or not it was wise, she asked, "Red shoes?"

"What?" He blinked up at her.

"Red shoes, I said. Will they be describing red shoes?"

"Why… why, yes, some of them. Red shoes just like yours."

But they both knew she'd never worn those red shoes since that one and only night when he'd taken her out to dinner.

"You… you like the red shoes, d… don't you, Abigail?"

She came near him and squatted down, her skirt forming a billowy mushroom about her as she reached to lay an arm upon his sleeve. "Please understand, David. I like them because they are from you, but I…"

When she hesitated, he insisted, "Go on."

She looked into his face, then away, then nervously stood up and turned her back on him. "Do you know what… what Mr. DuFrayne said when he saw them?"

David instantly bristled at the mention of DuFrayne. "What does DuFrayne have to do with it?"

"He was here the day they arrived, as you know." Resolutely she turned to face David before adding,

"He called them strumpet's shoes." David's face burned and his lips pursed.

"Why do you bring him up? What does it matter what he thinks?"

Her tone became imploring. "Because I want your business to succeed. I want you to realize that here in Stuart's Junction people don't wear red shoes, but they wear a lot of work boots and sensible utility shoes. If you are going to succeed, it is imperative that you understand. In the East, where bright colors are all the rage, it is perfectly acceptable to sell them and to wear them. It's different here. You look at those colors from the salesman's point of view. People here, particularly women, are far more conservative. No matter how much they might even secretly admire them, most of these women would not dream of purchasing them. That is the only reason I repeated Me DuFrayne's comment, because it symbolizes the views of the town."

"Abigail." His mouth was pinched, his jaw rigid. He had completely forgotten the reason for her soliloquy.

Only one thing now possessed his thoughts. "Are you saying he called you a strumpet?"

Without thinking, she replied, "Oh, no, he was just jealous, that's all."

David jumped to his feet, snapping, "What?"

She tried to make light of it, realizing her mistake. "We're getting off the subject. We were speaking of the most sensible shoes for you to order."

"
You
were speaking of the most sensible shoes for me to order
I
was speaking of why DuFrayne should have cause to feel jealous. Was there something between you two after all?" David Melcher became strangely self-assured and glib-tongued whenever DuFrayne's name came up. He possessed a firm authority which was missing at other times.

"No!" she exclaimed—too fast—then, calming herself, repeated more quietly, "No… there was nothing between us. He was hateful and inconsiderate and insulting whenever he got the chance to be." But she knew that wasn't entirely true, and she could not meet David's eyes.

"Then why should he care one way or another if I sent you a pair of strumpet's shoes? After that scene on the bed the morning I left, I should think he'd be the type to applaud red shoes, if what you say is true and they really are considered inappropriate."

Unwittingly, David had hit on one of those inconsistencies about Jesse DuFrayne that rankled her still, all these weeks after he had left. It was disconcerting to have it put into words by someone else when it was in her thoughts so often, seemingly inexpressible.

"I cannot answer for him," she said, "and I don't think it's your place to upbraid me. After all, you and I are nothing more than—" But she suddenly came up short, chagrined at herself. She dropped her eyes and fidgeted with the button on her cuff. She really did not know what she and David were to each other.

He had been the epitome of politeness in the weeks they'd been working together on plans for the store.

The only change—and it was natural—was that they'd begun using each other's first names. He'd made no further attempt to kiss her or even hold her hand. In no other way did he indicate that he was wooing her She supposed that he thought he'd offended her by getting drunk and kissing her that way before the entire populace of Stuart's Junction on the Fourth of July and was making amends by his extreme politeness since then.

Again with that aura of authority, he said unequivocally, "I don't want that man's name mentioned between us again, Abigail."

Her eyes came up sharply to meet his. By what right did he give her orders? They were not betrothed.

Suddenly David softened. The wind lifted the brown hair from his forehead, and the expression about his eyes grew wistful. He stood with his weight on his good leg—he often did that, perhaps because his other foot gave him discomfort—and it lent him a relaxed look, especially when he had the thumb and forefinger of one hand hidden inside his vest pocket, where he carried his watch.

"Abigail, what were you going to say just then? That you and I are no more than what? You didn't finish."

But how could she finish? It had been a slip of the tongue. He should be the one to finish, to understand what it was she had meant. She had grown so used to being with him, and she enjoyed him most of the time. Now and then she thought of her lost virginity and the fact that she should cease encouraging David, but as time went on she thought of it less and less. Still, he never made any advances toward her or even acted as if he thought about doing so. They shared a platonic relationship at most. And so Abbie thought up a likely answer for him.

"I was going to say business partners, but I guess we're not even that. The business is yours." She could not quite meet his eyes.

"I feel like it's half yours too. You've done as much or in… more than I." He began to stammer as soon as the subject broached anything personal. While speaking of the store his enthusiasm kept his voice steady. But now, perilously close to clarifying his relationship with Abigail, he grew timorous again.

"I've done no more than any friend would do," she said humbly, hoping he would deny it.

"No, Abigail, you've done much more. I don't know how I could have done it all without you. You…

your judgments are in… much better than mine."

She waited with her heart in her throat, wondering if he'd go on to more personal things, but she could sense his shyness—for some men it is not easy to be the man in a situation like this. The silence lengthened between them and became uncomfortable and she could see he'd lost his nerve.

"We still haven't agreed on the ordering of the stock," she said, and the moment of discomfort passed.

"Something tells me I should trust your judgment again on this."

"There is room at the rear of the store for boots. I am also very sure that we'll sell more of them if we do it the way I've envisioned it. Come to the store and we'll look around and I'll show you just where we could put the boot section and how we'll plan it."

"Now?"

"Why not?"

"But it's Sunday."

"So it is, and there'll be no noisy hammering and banging and we should be able to talk in peace and study -the possibilities."

He smiled, conceding. "You're right. Let's go."

She no longer wore her hat and gloves when the weather was too hot for them. They walked uptown in the late-day sun, nodding hello to an occasional neighbor who now called an amiable greeting to both of them. "Afternoon, David, Miss Abigail. How you doin'?" There were times when Miss Abigail already felt married to him.

The skeleton of the building was up. It had walls and part of a roof, but inside the studs showed. The framework of the bow window lay in wait of panes, and there was no front door yet. The interior walls were to be of tin wainscot above the shelves—the stacks of wainscot lay amid sawhorses and planks.

Abigail picked her way among pails of nails, stacks of shelving, the carved posts Bones and the boys had already completed. "See here?" At the rear of the building she pointed to a spot where a hole had been left for the chimney pipe.

"Now here's where the stove will be. Suppose we cut some giant rounds of oak and leave them, bark and all, just as they come from the woods. We'll put them here near the stove and set the rugged work boots on the wood to add just the right touch of masculinity. A basket of nuts here, the ring of sturdy chairs around the stove, or leaning up against the wall behind it, almost as if reserved for each man. Why, they'll love it! Men love it near a stove. Women get enough of stoves working in their kitchens, so we'll put their shoes up front where it's cool, in the display window surrounded by the spooled railing. And while it might be true that no woman around here might like the color red on her shoes, they will find it cheerful and gay when it is brightening up the store as a background for displays. Imagine it at Christmas with the fire snapping and a hot pot of coffee back here on the stove for the men. We could invite them to leave their mugs right here, hanging on the wall on pegs. We'll sell boots all right, and plenty of them.

At the same time the ladies will be up front oohing and aahing over your fancy shoes, and gossiping, away from their husbands."

Abigail didn't know it, but carried away as she was by her plans for the store, her face had taken on the same lovely look that Jesse had discovered upon it the day the red shoes came. Neither did she realize she had said "
we'll
sell boots all right." Her face was animated, bright-eyed and radiant. And just as Jesse DuFrayne had been moved by it weeks ago, David Melcher was moved by it now. The hem of Abigail's skirt had stirred up sawdust in the air, and the sun, glinting down through the chimney hole and half-finished roof, caught it in hovering cantles as she gestured, moved, turned, and spoke. She raised a hand to point at where the coffee pot would be, bubbling away on a winter stove… and David forgot the summer heat, imagined her here then, helping the ladies select shoes, bringing her enthusiasm along with her good business sense. He imagined helping the husbands while he told their ladies, "My wife will help you up front."

BOOK: Hummingbird
4.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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